


shove joy

by silklace



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sex Work, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:20:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21625195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silklace/pseuds/silklace
Summary: November had swept in with icy fingers and days so grey they obliterated the sky, and abruptly the green grass went lank with frost overnight and the fires had to be coaxed into being out of cold ashes in the mornings.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Jimmy Kent
Comments: 31
Kudos: 156





	shove joy

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing one story and then it became something else and along the way I realized I wasn't finished writing about Jimmy dealing with trauma.
> 
> Title from Tony Hoagland's [Reasons to Survive November](https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2003%252F11%252F03.html) because why not. 
> 
> Mind the warnings. Still, [fleabag voice]: this is a love story.

The snow is going to leave two patches of dark-grey on his trousers. He can picture it already – the warm light of the low lamps from the kitchens, everyone bustling in and out with the last of the night’s work or having a cuppa and a chat by the fire before retiring to the solitude of a servant’s single cot. Carson’ll probably take the chance to reprimand him, afraid that if he doesn’t exercise the skill hourly it’ll skive off on him. Maybe Anna will look up from her sewing, catch his eye, give him one of those knowing looks that makes his insides turn over like the time he was six and the fair had come to town, bringing with it the biggest turning wheel he’d ever seen in his life, and he’d insisted on going up in it, even though his mum had told him not to, and he’d looked over the edge of the bucket and thought the world was turned inside out.

That’s not how he feels right now, though - other way ‘round more like, as if he’s got the world at his feet. 

Or, more like, at his knees. 

There’s a gasped-out, bitten-off noise above him and he glances up to meet Thomas’ wide eyes. His own lashes are flecked with snow, and his cheeks are probably the color of apples, or the pink his skin takes on under the sun. He moves his lips an inch further down, and the cock in his mouth jerks. 

“Jimmy,” Thomas says helplessly. 

He makes an encouraging noise and flexes his grip around Thomas’ thighs, encouraging him closer, pulling off for a moment to rasp, “C’mon now.” 

“What? Tell me – I don’t.” Thomas sounds half-bewildered, half-scared. He sucks in a sharp breath when Jimmy moves his mouth back to the head of his cock, suckling lightly, using his fist to jerk him off into his mouth. God, he likes the idea of that, Thomas putting him on his knees and holding his mouth open with one sure hand around his jaw, the other moving over his cock, the head just skimming Jimmy’s open mouth. He’d spend with his cockhead jerking on Jimmy’s tongue, as if Jimmy weren’t fit to do naught but take his release. 

That makes a shiver of shameful arousal run through him, and he moves his hand back to Thomas’ trouser clad thigh, going down on him again. Thomas’ cock is thick and sweet, somehow like the rest of him. Not that he can see much of him with how he’s fully dressed against the bitter cold, the only bit of him exposed his prick, which Jimmy intends to keep warm with his mouth. 

He takes the length all the way down, and stays there, everything wiped clean from his mind but the purpose of warming Thomas’ cock with his throat. 

“Heavens,” Thomas mutters, the word in delicate contrast to the way he sounds run through and raw, the way his hand comes back to the back of Jimmy’s head and cups his skull, compulsively, as if he can’t not touch. 

_Finally,_ Jimmy thinks, and blinks up at Thomas with his mouth still stuffed full of his cock, fluttering his lashes a little to show how much he likes it. 

“My god,” Thomas mutters, gloved thumb sweeping across his cheekbone.

Jimmy feels a dark thrill at the words and drops his gaze so he can focus on swiping his tongue along the base of Thomas’s cock. His own prick is tight against his trousers; he wants to press his palm between his legs but instead he grips Thomas round the thighs harder. 

“I will - ,” Thomas breathes. 

Jimmy makes a noise of consent, wanting it, nearly tasting it – Thomas’ come. He brings his hand up to help Thomas along and sucks wetly at the head. 

“Jimmy, I’m going to -,” he shudders, and then he is. Hot and bitter, it floods Jimmy’s mouth. He closes his eyes. Thomas’ thighs are trembling under his fingertips. He imagines if he moved them to Thomas’ chest, or belly, or lips, those parts of him would be trembling, too. 

He could stay where he is a bit longer, feel Thomas’ cock go soft and sated in his mouth, kiss him until he makes a noise like it’s too much but he still wants more, lick him clean until he’s fit to be done up again. But he doesn’t. The wind is like a knife on the back of his neck, and he rises, fixing Thomas’ trousers as he goes. 

Thomas looks – 

Jimmy wants a cigarette. 

“Kiss me,” Thomas says. His mouth is o-shaped. His eyes are wide like when he’s hurt or nervous or scared or lonely in the middle of the night and telling Jimmy about his Da’s knuckles, mouth a little wet from the bottle of wine they’ve been sharing. “You can - ”

“Ah, don’t ruin it, like,” Jimmy tells him. He fishes in his pockets, pulls out a packet of cigarettes, and offers one to Thomas wordlessly. They’ve been gone too long, at this rate. Someone might come looking.

Briefly, Thomas’ face goes crumpled, the way ashes hollow in on themselves as they dissipate in the wind after a fire. He looks off, out at the dark line of trees in the distance; the snow makes everything further away. 

“Go on.” He nudges the packet forward and reaches for his lighter. “Take one.”

“Right,” Thomas says. He breathes out once through his nose, then says, again, “right,” and takes a cigarette. “I -,” he pauses with his fingers curled around the white paper. “Don’t you want – shall I - ”

Jimmy grins at him, thinks about how Thomas stripped his cock so efficiently last night he came with his palm against his own mouth. Afterwards, he’d said, “Next time, you can use your hand to make me quiet,” and Thomas had gone pink down to his sternum. 

Now, he leans in and says, conspiratorial, with Thomas lit under the blue moon, “Make me wait on it, why don’t you? Then see how easy I am about it.” He sucks at his cigarette, cheeks hollowing, and turns without waiting for Thomas’ reply, knowing he’ll catch up with him anyways. 

November had swept in with icy fingers and days so grey they obliterated the sky, and abruptly the green grass went lank with frost overnight and the fires had to be coaxed into being out of cold ashes in the mornings. 

It was November and Jimmy woke up with his head feeling like it was made of cotton and dust for nearly two weeks. He went to the pictures and made eyes at girls in the queue under the electric lights but nothing ever came of it. He went to the pub and drank too much and came home stinking of ale and Thomas would look at him with dark eyes. He never said anything, just put his cigarette out and followed Jimmy up to the servant’s quarters like he was going that way anyways and hadn’t been waiting up for him even though sometimes his cigarette was fresh or only half-smoked or he had a cup of still steaming tea next to his elbow and they went on like this for a handful of nights until they didn’t, until one night Jimmy turned halfway up the stairs and snarled, “Stop following me.”

Thomas’ mouth was firm but his eyes were wide and hurt. “I’m not.”

“Are too,” Jimmy said, and was fully prepared to fire back with that for at least, oh, another few minutes, but Thomas only sighed. 

“C’mon lad, put yourself to bed. You’re blotto. We’re in the middle of the staircase.”

Jimmy had opened his mouth to tell him he could talk in the middle of the staircase if he wanted to, he could talk wherever he liked because he was his own person, thanks ever so, but what came out instead was, “Why don’t you put me to bed then.”

Thomas’ mouth clicked closed. 

Jimmy squinted at a point over his shoulder. That was -. He swallowed. 

“Alright,” Thomas said softly. 

“What?”

“Alright,” Thomas repeated. “If that’s what you want.”

Jimmy hadn’t said anything because they were after all in the middle of the staircase and even though he could hear Carson’s snoring from here, he suddenly – well. He wanted to find out what would happen next. 

So they’d trudged quietly to Jimmy’s room and Jimmy had sat heavily on his bed and spent several long seconds scrabbling at his boot laces until Thomas had said, “I can -,” and instead of answering, Jimmy leaned back on his hands and spread his knees. 

Thomas’ nostrils flared as he breathed through his nose. “You’re going to have a right sore head in the morning, aren’t you?”

Jimmy grinned up at him, feeling reckless and wild. His heart was somewhere in his teeth, or his cock, maybe. “Certainly am. Weren’t you saying something about putting me to bed?”

Thomas came over and dropped down, perfunctorily pulling Jimmy’s shoe against his thighs. Jimmy thought there wasn’t anything perfunctory about his foot on Thomas’ lap. About Thomas on his knees. 

Fingers working, Thomas said lightly, “I think that was you, rather.”

“Me what?”

“Asking me to take you to bed.”

Jimmy sucked in a breath. Thomas’ head was bent to his task. His fingers were careful and steady. 

“Put me to bed,” Jimmy corrected. He ground his heel a little against the soft flesh of Thomas’ thigh, and Thomas either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Put, I said.”

Thomas made a small noise of assent and cupped the backs of Jimmy’s ankles. His fingers were warm. Jimmy wondered if it was because he’d been holding a cup of tea in the kitchen, or if they were always like that, always a little warm, and sure, and steady. 

Thomas moved away with his fingers hooked in Jimmy’s shoes, and Jimmy’s hands went to his trousers. He was doing really well at this whole business, he thought, considering how much he’d had to drink. And – other things. 

“Braces first, I should think,” Thomas said, looking up from where he was neatly tucking Jimmy’s shoes in his wardrobe. 

“You’re – infuriating,” Jimmy told him, because he was. Always acting like he knew best, like he was one step ahead of everyone else – always just far enough ahead to be untouchable. 

“Oh, darling, pot, kettle. Well done starting with your jacket, though. That was a stroke of genius, if I do say so.”

Jimmy shot to his feet. “Don’t call me that.” He shrugged out of his braces, pushing them off his shoulders. “You don’t – you’re not -,” he said, and then: “I’m _not_."

Thomas was looking at him with an expression that was – soft. Like he was looking at something new or precious. Jimmy turned and began to work his shirt out of his waistband. He could feel heat on his back, on his neck, and he wanted Thomas to look away. 

That’s what he wanted.

“Don’t lose your head,” Thomas said, and when Jimmy turned his eyes were – back to normal, not so soft or tender, and Jimmy could breathe again. “Only I didn’t think we could take having you topple off your bed tonight tangled in your braces, on top of -,” he made a vague gesture at Jimmy’s person, “whatever else this is that you’re doing.”

Jimmy narrowed his eyes at him. Thomas laughed. “You look like an unhappy rabbit.” Jimmy sniffed, which only made his nose twitch and Thomas’ eyes crinkle. “Oh, not at all helping.”

“I’m taking my shirt off.”

“I can see that.”

“Do you like it?”

“What, exactly?”

“What you see.”

Thomas sucked in another breath. “You do need to be put to bed.”

Jimmy had a second to consider, and then his hands went to his waistband, and he wasn’t really considering anything at all. He let his trousers drop. Thomas winced, visibly, at the sound of his braces hitting the floor. 

At the pub, he’d looked at a man with dark hair and darker eyes and the man had looked back at him with a smile like a knife. It was November, and Jimmy had thought about running into that knife. 

Thomas said his name. 

Jimmy pushed the thin quilt back on his bed and sat on the thin mattress. It creaked, a small noise. “I’m tired.”

Thomas’ mouth was a little open. “I’ll let you sleep, alright?”

“Thomas,” Jimmy said, and he lay back, one arm propped behind his head. “Will you –”

“What?” Thomas said quickly.

“C’mere.”

“Alright.”

“I’m very tired.” He ran his knuckles down his bare chest, stopped at his waist where the blankets were shoved down, where the waistband of his shorts lay. “Sometimes, I have trouble sleeping.”

“Oh,” Thomas said. He was kneeling next to Jimmy’s cot. His eyes flicked between Jimmy’s hand and his face. 

Jimmy slid one finger underneath the waistband of his shorts. Something like a siren was going off inside his head. Something like a wail was under his tongue. He pushed his hand past his waistband.

“Jimmy,” Thomas said. 

“I’m not -,” Jimmy said. “You are, though.”

Thomas slanted a look away. 

Jimmy looked at the ceiling. He weighed the word. Knew what it would do to Thomas. Did it anyways. November like a knife. 

“Please,” he said, with his lip between his teeth. 

Thomas put his hand on his belly and made a noise like he’d been punched in the sternum. His fingers were warm and trembling.

“Yes,” Jimmy bit out and he shut his eyes when Thomas’ fingers, endlessly gentle, slid down his belly and closed around his cock. When he came, he was watching Thomas and the way he had his face pressed against the bedsheets, as if he couldn’t bear to look. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be supervising the laying of the wreaths?” He affects a posh tone for the last couple of words, seeing as how the servant’s hall is mostly empty with the mid-morning lull. Also, Carson is absent. For the time being at least. 

Thomas looks up, taking a quick drag off his cigarette. “Probably,” he says, smiling a little. “Needed a cuppa.” He pushes the cup towards Jimmy with the back of his knuckles. 

“Ta,” Jimmy says gratefully, and leans over to grab a few hurried gulps. “I’m supposed to be getting – something.” He pulls a face. “Can’t remember now. I’m sure when I go back upstairs it’ll come to me.”

Thomas does a shaky little laugh. It’s been a couple of days, since he last touched Jimmy. Properly, that is. Not that Jimmy’s counting or anything. “Isn’t that how it always is?”

“Anyways,” Jimmy says, looking around before leaning in close. Two of the housemaids are skiving off by trying to see what’ll happen if they throw popcorn kernels directly into the fire. Otherwise, there’s no one else around. “Come find me. Later.” Thomas says nothing, so Jimmy looks meaningfully at him. “I’ll make it worth your while,” he says and leans over to pluck the cigarette from Thomas’ fingers. He takes a long drag, hollowing his cheeks in parody of last night, and hands it back to him, exhaling around a half-crooked grin. 

He spends the rest of the morning getting told off by Carson, but in the end it’s alright because Thomas does come and find him later, while he’s trudging around the third floor ostensibly looking for bare patches to cover with holly or ribbon or some other shite but mostly trying to find a quiet, unobtrusive corner to pass the time in, before he’s being unceremoniously stuffed into a cupboard. 

“Fuck,” he says hotly. 

“Sorry,” Thomas gets out, close and warm, “I’ll have you know I’d never have done that even a week ago but last night you had your mouth so far down my cock you could probably taste me this morning so I figured you could handle a bit of pushing about.”

Jimmy blinks. “Shit.” That’s more words than Thomas has ever said to him in one go. “Alright.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Well, now you’ve got me in here.”

“I do, don’t I?”

Jimmy tips his chin up. “What’re you going to do about it?”

Thomas leans in. 

“Don’t,” Jimmy says, and he’s – he feels calm, he feels fine, but his voice comes out harsh and strange. 

“I know,” Thomas tells him, and puts his hand between Jimmy’s legs. 

“Shit.” His head cracks back against the wall. He’s been hard since Thomas pushed him in here, and something about the way the corner of Thomas’ mouth pulls back tells him he knows it. 

“Been wanting it, huh?”

“Told you I was easy.” He emphasizes that by rolling his hips, a languorous little fuck forward into Thomas’ rubbing palm. 

“The last thing I’d call you is easy,” Thomas says, voice soft, and before Jimmy can react to that he says, “You want to come like this?”

Jimmy swallows, tips his head back. Something about Thomas’ face is a challenge, like he expects Jimmy to start shouting his head off for Carson and the brigade and maybe the Queen to come running. Jimmy lets his eyes fall half-closed; Thomas’ fingers are working the head of his cock through his trousers, wrist caught between the closeness of their bodies. 

“No,” Jimmy tells him, and feels the immediate retreat of Thomas’ hand, but he catches it, pulls his arm around him as in the same flurry of movement he shifts around so he can face the wall, Thomas peeled against his back. “Like this,” he explains and puts Thomas’ hand between his legs again. 

“Fuck,” Thomas breathes, and Jimmy feels it on the back of his neck – his warm breath, his fingers scrabbling at Jimmy’s trousers, pushing them open, and when he finally gets his fist on Jimmy’s cock, Jimmy breathes out a long, slow exhale between his teeth and pushes his arse deliberately back against Thomas. 

Thomas goes abruptly still. 

“Don’t stop,” Jimmy tells him, turning so his cheek is on the flat of his hand. The cupboard is really – rather small. 

“What.” Thomas’s voice is oddly flat. “What do you want me to do?”

 _Isn’t it fucking obvious,_ he wants to say, but instead he flexes his hips, feeling the thick bulge of Thomas’ cock against his arse. 

“You know - ”

“I really, really don’t,” Thomas tells him. 

“Like you’re fucking me,” Jimmy grits out. Move your goddamn hand, he thinks, I can’t breathe and it’s November and we’re in a goddamn cupboard. “I know you’ve been wanting to give me a good fucking since I got here, go on, Thomas.”

“I’m not going to fuck you,” Thomas says, voice tight. Jimmy could scream, but Thomas finishes, “But I am going to give it to you, alright?”

He presses in close and tight, fucking his hips forward a little and it’s not harsh, it’s gentle, too gentle, but Jimmy rears up on his toes anyway so Thomas will follow him, and he does, coming in close and hard and steady, until Jimmy’s so crowded against the wall he couldn’t move if he wanted to. 

“Yes,” he breathes, face mashed against his palm. “Give it to me.”

Afterwards, Thomas tells him, “Turn around,” and wipes him down with a handkerchief. He does his trousers up and finishes by taking a clean corner of the handkerchief and blotting it gently against the corner of Jimmy’s mouth and then his eyes. Jimmy’s chest is going. 

“Can’t catch my breath,” he says, and tries to laugh. 

“It’s alright,” Thomas says, stuffing the handkerchief away and moving his hands towards Jimmy’s hair. “Take your time.”

“Not with you touching me like that,” he tells him, finally, and ducks away, out of reach of his careful, searching fingers. 

“Your hair –,” Thomas tells him. “You look like you’ve just been tumbled by an overeager butler in a dusty cupboard for the last quarter hour, Jimmy.” His voice inches towards exasperation, which Jimmy thinks is a bit much given he just spent the last five minutes grinding artfully back on his cock without using his hands until Thomas’d come hard enough he'd bit down, once, on the lobe of Jimmy’s ear. 

“Fine.” He exhales quick. “Fix it for me then.” He holds himself still. There’s no noise except for the soft rustle of clothing as Thomas moves, the small sigh he makes as he tilts Jimmy’s head up. His fingers are as delicate as if he’s touching a teacup. Jimmy bites out, “You don’t have to be so bloody - gentle.”

Thomas glares at him. “I genuinely do not know how to fix your hair without being careful about it, you absolute fucking menace.”

Something hot zings through Jimmy at that, and he grins, quicksilver-like. “Come to the pictures with me. Tonight. It’s my half-day.”

Thomas glares again. “Well it’s not mine.”

“Switch with someone.”

“I can’t just switch with someone.”

“Why not?”

“Because – what would I say?”

Thomas licks his thumb and rubs it with the grain of Jimmy’s eyebrow, which should be – disgusting. Jimmy bites the inside of his lip, hard. “Make something up. You can’t go sodding me in a cupboard either, but here we are, aren’t we?”

Thomas sucks in an annoyed breath. “I didn’t sod you, you little shite.”

Jimmy feels his grin ratchet higher. “Aw, but you wanted to, didn’t you?” He leans in and rubs his nose against Thomas’ jaw. “Come on. Come to the pictures with me tonight.” 

When he pulls back, the frown is off Thomas’ face. Everything is off Thomas’ face – he’s gone blank, like smooth paper. Jimmy doesn’t know what he’s thinking. At last, he says, “Alright, I’ll try.”

Jimmy shrugs. “If you can. I’m not bothered,” he says and pushes his way out of the cupboard. 

Alfred finds him later in the drawing room. “What the hell have you been doing? I’ve been looking everywhere.” His face is very red. “Carson’s going to have an apoplexy.”

Jimmy snorts. “Might be good for him.” He gestures with his hand. “I’m – taking care of the plants, isn’t that obvious?” He gives a squeeze for good measure and the over-watered ivy he’s been doggedly misting while he attempts to get his breathing to even out gives a tremulous shake of protest. “Alright, well, chuck that off the list. Finished watering the plants.”

“Jesus, c’mon.”

“At your service, Alfred,” he says. “By the by, it’s not your half-day, is it?”

Thomas doesn’t come with him to the pictures, which suits Jimmy just fine. He goes to the pub, then to the theater, where some tart in black and white cries on her knees for a bloke, then he goes back to the pub, then some other things happen, and when he gets back to the Abbey it’s so late the grates have burned down to embers. 

Which also suits him just fine, ‘cause his mouth tastes like ashes, too, and also it’s November – so it’s ashes, ashes, ashes all around isn’t it?

“You know, if you’re mad at me for not coming with you, you don’t have to go and take it out on yourself like that. Carson’s going to have your hide.”

It takes Jimmy a minute for the words to arrange themselves into meaning in front of him, and still, what he says is, “What?”

Thomas flicks his lighter open, setting it against the wick of a lamp, and Jimmy blinks in the soft light, watching Thomas watch him come into view. “Shit,” he mutters when Thomas’ face goes white, bleached open. “That bad, is it?”

“What - ,” Thomas chokes, jumping out of his seat quickly, then visibly stopping, palm flat on the table. He takes a breath, moving forward, watching Jimmy. Jimmy watches him back. “What - Jimmy, darling, what happened?”

Jimmy sniffs. He feels his lip split open. He raises his chin. “Don’t call me that. M’not your darling or sweetheart or your cockhungry little catamite, am I?”

Thomas puts one hand over half his face. Like he can’t bear to look at what he’s looking at. “Keep your voice down,” he says, finally. 

“Or what?”

“My god,” Thomas says, and finally, there’s something like disgust in his voice. Jimmy’s grin ratchets wider, goes knife sharp and vicious. “I don’t – did you spend the evening taking offers for men to hit you?”

Something terrible burbles in Jimmy’s throat and comes out like a laugh. “Something like that, yeah.”

Thomas’ mouth is a small, hurt thing but he manages to get out, “I hope you got your money’s worth then,” and Jimmy – thinks, _oh_ very distinctly as something dangerous and sharp cracks open in his chest. 

He spins, grabs onto the chair behind him to stop his knees from giving out. “I -”

Once, he’d been sixteen and very hungry and his mother had just died and his father would not leave their bedroom, nor their bed, and Jimmy’d gone to the corner where he’d been going for the past 6 months or so, not regularly, only when the bread wouldn’t stretch another day, and he waited with his back to the brick wall and when a man in a brown suit had come up, Jimmy’d followed him into a hidden little alley and gotten down on his knees and thought about what it’d be like to join the army and go to France and talk to a French girl, maybe, and he was learning the foxtrot from one of the other corner boys, anyways, and girls liked that, didn’t they, and halfway through the man had dragged him up and pushed his face against the brick wall and said he wanted to get his money’s worth and Jimmy had kept very, very quiet until the man was done. 

Afterwards, he’d thrown up, careful of his shoes, and then he’d bought a loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese and sliced up a few pieces for his father and brought it to him where he had his face pressed to one of his mother’s nightgowns. 

“I,” he says, again, and feels Thomas come up behind him. He finds his voice then. “If you want to keep them, you’ll know better than to put your hands on me right now.”

“I certainly do,” Thomas says, and his voice isn’t shaky at all, but Jimmy wonders if he turned around now, if his face would still be white – like a sheet, like the belly of a fish, like the color of the sky in November, full of grief. 

“Don’t touch me.” 

“I will not. Jimmy,” Thomas says, “I won’t touch you.”

Even that – like a kindness. Jimmy feels a noise in his throat and watches a globule of spit drop onto the floor below him. He’s still bent in half. He’s going to have to stand up again, in a moment. 

“Come upstairs,” Thomas says. “I’ll wash the blood off your face, alright?”

Jimmy thinks about it. “Alright,” he says, finally. 

Thomas goes ahead of him, and doesn’t look back to check if he’s following, and Jimmy watches the back of his head – hair as dark as an oil slick, so black it looks almost blue in the flash of moonlight through the window. Then they’re in the servant’s hall, where there aren’t any windows. 

“Go to your room,” Thomas tells him, voice almost inaudible. 

“I -,” he swallows. Looks away. 

“I’m going to get my emergency kit, alright? Go to your room, and sit on the bed, and I’ll be there in less than a minute.”

“Okay.”

He sits on his bed and counts. Thomas is sliding in silently through the crack in the open door by the time he reaches twenty-six. 

He shuts the door, then bolts it. He pauses. “That alright?”

“That’s alright,” Jimmy says.

Thomas takes the kit and sets it on the bed next to Jimmy, moves off to grab the water pitcher and bowl. Jimmy hears him – water sloshing, quiet steps. He’s removed his shoes to soften the sounds. His mum used to do that, ‘cause his da worked nights and in the mornings when she’d make Jimmy toast or sometimes, if they were lucky, eggs and all, she’d be wearing just her stockings. She couldn’t help the humming, though, that were like second nature. 

“My mother died,” he says, abruptly. “In November.”

Thomas is quiet, pulling a chair up in front of the bed. Jimmy’s hands are on his knees. The knuckles of his left hand are smeared open, scattered with blood sheared up. Probably a brick wall, maybe someone’s face. He’s not sure. 

He looks up, and Thomas is watching him, without expectation. 

“I’m going to touch you now, if that’s alright with you?”

“It’s -,” fuck. The words slam in his throat. Is it alright with him? If Thomas touches him? It’s not. It is. It’s okay, it’s terrible, it’s – like coming up for air sometimes, and sometimes, it’s like going under and under and under. 

“I want to wash the blood off your face. If you’d like me to, that is.”

“Alright,” Jimmy says, and then: “She used to wear yellow dresses, all the time.”

“That so?” Thomas takes up a cloth and dips the edge of it into the water bowl. “Bet she had hair like yours, too.”

Jimmy’s mouth moves, not really a smile. He sucks in a breath when his lip splits again. The cloth is cool against his skin, catching the blood, blotting his tender lip. “She did,” he says. “My da used to call us – uh.” He stops. Thomas turns the cloth over to a clean edge and draws it along his cheekbone. When he can go on again, he says, “- his sunshine gang. Said we had hair the color of sunshine.”

Thomas’ mouth lifts a little. “Not half wrong at all.”

“I’m her spitting image,” Jimmy tells him, touching his thumb to the inside of his wrist, where a bloom of a bruise lurks under the skin. “You’d probably have liked her, the way you liked me right away. Everyone did.”

“Well,” Thomas says, and his eyes are careful on Jimmy’s throat, where the cloth sweeps at a patch of dust or dirt or blood, he’s not sure. “Probably not the way I like you.”

Jimmy snorts. Thomas wrings the cloth out in the bowl and starts over again. Jimmy lets him. When he gets out the antiseptic, a brown little glass bottle, and a bit of soft gauze, Jimmy says, “That’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”

Thomas looks at him. “Yes,” he says, finally. 

Jimmy submits to it. It does sting. Thomas doesn’t tell him it doesn’t, or that it’s alright. Instead, he murmurs once, “I know it hurts,” and lets Jimmy grip him on the front of his nice shirt, getting wrinkles in it. When he’s done, Jimmy keeps his hand there. He imagines he can feel Thomas’ heartbeat, coming up to meet his fingertips, but – that’s probably the ale talking. Or having his head battered around a bit by a group of men he couldn’t stop himself from starting a fight with. One or the other. 

“Gonna have to bandage your forehead, I think,” Thomas tells him. Jimmy’s eyes are starting to slide closed. Thomas’ voice is soft, murmuring, a bit like a lullaby. “You’ll hafta play poorly tomorrow, give it a bit of time to not look quite so gruesome.” Jimmy makes a soft noise, or he thinks he does. “Not going to fall asleep on me, are ya?” He shakes his head, just a little.

“Good, love,” Thomas says, and Jimmy’s too tired to fight it. Much.

“Piss off,” he says, but there’s no bite in it. His hand is still clutching Thomas’ shirtfront. 

“Let’s get you into sleep clothes, alright?” When Jimmy nods, Thomas tells him, “Get your kit off.”

“You’re not going to like it.” His voice is a little slurred, not from ale, so much as the quiet ministrations of Thomas’ hands, taking him under and over into something like sleepiness. 

Thomas makes a wry face, gently untwisting Jimmy’s hand from his shirt to rise and find Jimmy’s sleep clothes where they’re stuffed in his wardrobe. “Not quite sure about that.”

Jimmy snorts and gets his fingers on the buttons of his shirt. He knows who this is going to hurt, so he says, “Just to be clear, I’d have liked – any other night, and I’d have wanted you to ask me to take my shirt off, Thomas.” He looks down, away, over at the floorboard that’s a bit scuffed from the night he dropped the warming iron on it and embers went all over. Scattered ashes and sparks across his bare feet, and it’d hurt but other things had hurt more. “To take my clothes off for you,” he says, shrugging the shirt off backwards, trying not to wince and knowing he’s not managing it, “I’d have liked it.”

Thomas is staring at him, mouth a little open. “No,” he says, once, like he’s willing it to be so.

“S’not so bad,” Jimmy tells him. 

“Liar.”

Jimmy sniffs. “Sometimes.”

“You just go out and find someone to hit you most nights, then, do you?”

“It’s November,” Jimmy says, as if that explains anything. He takes a breath. “And not most nights, no.”

Thomas makes a jerky little movement, which Jimmy doesn’t understand until he’s turning around, back rigid. 

“Come off it, Thomas, it’s really not so bad.”

“Don’t tell me. What it is or it isn’t.” Thomas turns around, hands professional, face smooth. “I’m going to bind your fucking ribs.”

Jimmy sucks his top lip. “Alright.”

“I wasn’t asking your permission. Not this time.”

“Alright.”

There’s a pause, Thomas unwrapping the binding between his hands. He says after a moment, thoughtfully, clinically. “How’d you get ‘em not to hit you in the face?”

Jimmy smiles. He shows his teeth. “I ask. Nicely.”

After that, Thomas is silent. When he’s done, he tosses Jimmy a tin of salve. “Rub it into your bruises, morning and night.”

Jimmy tilts a look at him. “You could do it for me, if you like.”

“No, thank you,” Thomas tells him, voice polite. His hands are steady where they sort through the emergency tin, wrapping up the rest of the bandaging and slotting it carefully inside. 

“Oh,” Jimmy says. “Alright, then.”

When he’s done putting the kit away, Thomas puts his hands on his thighs. “So,” he says, as if he’s trying to work something out, “didn’t work, tonight? When you asked them. Not to hit you in the face.”

“Obviously,” Jimmy says, feeling dangerously like laughing. 

“Right,” Thomas says. “Right. What I can’t figure out is what you were going to tell me if -,” he corrects himself. “When. When I saw them.” He takes a short, heavy breath. “The bruises, I mean.”

 _That’s not exactly what I’ve been thinking about when I’m begging you to sod me,_ he could say, close enough as it is to the truth, but instead he sniffs and leans back on his bed. His shirt’s still off. “Weren’t really an issue, were it? Long as my hands and mouth were accessible, I mean.”

Thomas’ head shoots up. His mouth is a thin, white line. “Don’t say that.” He rubs at his mouth, as if he’s trying to erase the shape of it. “Not to me.”

Jimmy swallows, says nothing. “The nights I weren’t out -,” he says, and his voice is shaking now, terrible and thready. “I was – with you. Those were the only nights,” he explains. “Since November started.”

Thomas is shaking his head. “I fucking love you, Jimmy.”

Jimmy looks away. “Don’t.”

“I do, Jimmy, you are – beloved to me -”

“Don’t,” Jimmy gasps, and his voice is scraped raw, harsher than anything he’s said tonight. 

There’s a horrible moment of stillness and then Thomas says. “Stop. Don’t come around anymore then. Don’t. I -,” he stands up. His fingers are trembling. “I’m not like -.” 

Jimmy feels very calm. “You should go to bed. Before Carson wakes up.”

“Yes,” Thomas says. 

Jimmy doesn’t watch him walk away. 

He stays in bed the next day. A hall boy brings him food, and when Jimmy asks him who sent him up, he’s not surprised at the boy’s answer. He convinces the kid to stay and play cards with him and shares half his scone with him, mostly for enticement to get him to stay since the boy complains he never wins against grown-ups anyways and what’s the fun of that, after all.

Halfway through the game, the boy looks up and says, “What happened to your head Mr. Jimmy?” His fringe is overlong, and he keeps flicking his head to knock it out of his eyes. 

Jimmy considers his cards. “Something very stupid,” he says, finally. 

“Hm.” The boy makes a face like that’s not a very satisfying answer. He’s got, Jimmy notices, the slightest hint of a lisp. “Who bandaged it for you? I think they did a nice right job. It’s very tidy. My mummy always does mine up, when I need it. Did your mummy do it for you?”

“Nope.” He thwacks a card down.

“Oh,” says the boy. “Well that’s alright. Mummy says it’s ‘cause she loves me that she takes such good care of me, which is soppy and all, I know that,” the boy says, very authoritatively, “and Da says she shouldn’t talk like that to me and all ‘cause I’m getting too big or summat so sometimes she just says it when he’s not around, and I know,” he clarifies, seriously and studying his cards very closely, “it’s soppy, but I like it. Mummy says it’s important for me to know I’m precious to her, and that’s why she kisses me over the bandage like, afterwards, you know?”

The boy is rambling, breath coming high and a little nervous. He’s very studiously not making eye contact at all with Jimmy. Softly, Jimmy says, “I know. I think you’re right.”

“Good,” the boy says, relief audible. He’s quiet, considering his cards with one hand touching his pursed lips. “Did the person who bandaged you up kiss yours afterwards?”

Jimmy touches his tongue to his lip. Looks up at the ceiling. When he can, he says, “Not this time.”

“Oh,” says the boy. “M’sorry.”

Jimmy sniffs. “Me too. S’alright though.” He pushes his half of the scone towards the boy. “Your turn.”

He lets him win, in the end. 

That night, he pulls a small silver frame from his bedside table. It’s a little dusty, and the dust makes the guilt ratchet higher. He holds it. He makes himself hold it. 

There’s half a bottle of whiskey in the bottom of his wardrobe. It’d make this easier, he thinks. 

He remembers Thomas’ face – sheet white, belly fish white, everything whited out but the grief. 

Easier, or not, in some ways. 

He holds the frame. He sits on his bed. He shifts to the floor. His ribs protest but it’s okay and he grits his teeth and rubs his cheek against his bed for something soft to hold on to and he presses the frame to his chest, over his heart, and he holds it there, and then to his face, which is a little wet, and then he says, “I miss you, Mum,” and once he’s said it, he can’t stop saying it, not for quite a long time, and other things, like how he’s sorry, and how he’d like to try to be good again, maybe, if he can.

If he pulls the curl of his forelock down, it almost covers the scraped skin, which is really all he can ask for. That and not making sustained eye contact with Carson. He brings his cap with him, stuffed into his back pocket, and is trying to decide whether to risk being shouted at for the cap or for the scrape when he collides with Thomas coming up the stairs. 

Thomas takes one look at him, then tugs him around the corner and shoves him into a cupboard. 

“Mr. Barrow,” he says, voice low. “We’ve simply got to stop meeting like this.”

Thomas rolls his eyes, then seems to recover himself enough to remember what they’re doing. He holds his lighter up. There’s a bit of grey morning light coming in through a filthy half-window, but that’s all. “Want to get a look at you,” Thomas tells him. “Going to use this, alright?”

“Alright,” he says, which isn’t what he meant to say, so he adds on, “I’m not your patient.”

“Might as well be.”

“Just your patient?” The lighter clicks. “Don’t answer that, actually,” he says, gut shifting. The last time they were in a cupboard like this, Thomas was pretending to fuck him, whispering about how much he’d like to do that to Jimmy, how sweet he’d look taking Thomas’ cock. 

He swallows. The flame is not very close to his face and Thomas tells him, “I can’t see bollocks in here.”

Jimmy nods at the lighter. “Bring it closer.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Sometimes, when Jimmy was working, he’d encourage his punters to get a little rougher, sometimes ‘cause he liked it and sometimes cause it helped everything go blank and noiseless in his brain, and sometimes they’d say that – _I don’t want to hurt you?_ , tilted all up at the end like a question. What they meant, of course, was: _Give me permission to hurt you. Make it okay that I’m hurting you._ So Jimmy had, with a grin like a knife, over and over, until sometimes he didn’t even know what he was saying only that it sounded more like, _hold me, please, hold me._ They never heard that, though.

When Thomas said it, it wasn’t like that. He said, _I don’t want to hurt you_ , and that’s all it meant. 

“Alright,” Jimmy says. He closes his eyes, then opens them. “I believe you.”

Thomas is looking at him. “Come with me.”

He meets Thomas in the lavatories a few moments later. The light’s a little stronger here. It still catches the shadows under Thomas’ eyes. 

“Ribs?”

“Brilliant.”

Thomas gives him a look. Jimmy sucks his teeth. “Been better,” he says finally. “Been worse.”

“Broken?”

“Probably not.”

“Good,” Thomas says. “Let’s have a look at your forehead, then.”

“Is this how you were with all your patients in the war? Could work on your bedside manner, mate.”

Thomas gives him a look, brows furrowed, half-startled, before he flicks his gaze away. “Thought you weren’t my patient,” he says, softly, carefully moving the hair off of Jimmy’s forehead so he can see.

“What am I then?”

“You know what you are. To me.”

Jimmy’s gut shifts. He can feel himself blushing. “But you won’t fuck me. Not anymore?”

Thomas exhales through his nose. Voice still soft, he says, “That’s looking better already. It was superficial, I think.” He steps back, eyes flicking down to meet Jimmy’s gaze. “Head wounds tend to bleed rather a lot.”

They hold each other’s gaze for a moment. Thomas turns away first. He says, “You don’t want me to fuck you. You want me to hurt you. I’m not interested in that.”

“Well,” Jimmy says, hot shame at his neck, at his throat, all the way down his goddamn spine. “I’ll fuck right off, then, won’t I?”

Thomas turns around. His face looks – wretched. “That’s what – that’s what you said,” he says finally. “When you weren’t getting it from others, you were tryin’ ta get it from me.” His accent always surfaces more, when he’s upset, Jimmy thinks. 

“That’s not -,” Jimmy swallows. He runs his hand up the back of his head. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“What did you mean, then?”

Something hot hurls itself out of Jimmy. “What does it matter, Thomas, right? I’m – fucked. I’m – I don’t know how to give you what you want. I told you that. I told you – I’m put together all wrong, and the world – fucking hell, Thomas, the world doesn’t want us, anyways.”

“Well – that’s a stupid reason. Not to.” His voice sounds scathing, only this time it’s not directed at Jimmy. Or maybe it is, a little. 

Jimmy opens his mouth to say what, he’s not sure, mostly he’s going with whatever comes rolling up from the hot roil of his gut, which isn’t going too well for him and never really has. 

A hall boy ducks his head in. “There you are,” he says, with scathing derision. “Carson’s going right mad.”

“Bugger,” Thomas mutters.

“Yep,” says the hall boy, as if he’d like to say, _you idiot._

Thomas tugs his vest straight and follows the hall boy out, and after a moment, Jimmy does, too.

The day is interminable. Tea is interminable. Thomas smokes cigarette after cigarette until Bates yells at him, then hurls invective at anyone who deigns to even look at him. Jimmy finds it soothing and holds on to the image of Bates’ face going redder and redder under Thomas’ deliberate exhales all through serving dinner. At one point, Thomas catches his eye, and then Jimmy is thinking about something else. 

Finally, at the end of the day, Thomas finds him next to the fireplace, subtly trying to warm his aching knuckles near its flames. “Smoke?”

“Ta,” Jimmy says and drags himself up after him, following him to the courtyard where they usually smoke, then beyond it, across the grounds, skirting the edges of the tree line for long minutes until Jimmy wonders if he should have packed a bag. “Are we absconding in the night?” It’s cold out and his breath makes small gusts in the night air. 

Thomas turns to him, and his face is – he pushes Jimmy against a tree. “I will -,” he says, and then takes a long breath as if he’s been gearing up some sort of speech that he hasn’t quite got the hang of yet. “I’m not going anywhere. If you want me, that is. If you want me to touch you and bring you off and call you sweet names and hold your hand under the table. If you want me to bring you smokes and cups of tea and patch you up when you hurl yourself at other men’s fists and tell you you’re the brightest and most beautiful thing in my life – I will. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t know how to go anywhere. I try to walk away from you and god, you come right back to me or I make my way back towards you, I haven’t figured it out quite yet, but – I. Everything turns back towards you. I’ll give you it, how much or how little you want because -,” his voice wavers a little and then he says, “You are my beloved. I don’t know how to walk away from that. From you. I don’t want to.”

“Ah.” They’re right at the edge of forest and yet, it’s still very dark. Darkness shot all the way through.

“Yes, that’s.” Thomas straightens a little from where he’s got Jimmy pinned. He loosens his grip but doesn’t pull away. “That’s the long and short of it, at least.”

“Alright.”

“Alright,” Thomas says, nodding. His mouth goes flat and then he looks up and meets Jimmy’s eyes and his mouth attempts to pull itself into something like the shape of a smile. “There you have me.” He takes a step back, eyes flicking away. “That’s all. We can go back now. We should go back, now,” he says, and turns towards the Abbey. 

His heart is like a toothache, in his mouth. “I come running.”

“Sorry?”

Jimmy takes a step towards him. “I come running. You try to leave me alone and I come running back to you, and it’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done in a long list of bad things I’ve done, Thomas, and I’m sorry, I am, but you look away and – my head goes off.” He presses one hand to his mouth. Thomas is there, crowding closer, holding him. “I am sorry,” he says, and it comes out like a sob. 

Thomas shushes him. “Don’t be sorry, my love. Don’t be.” His hands come up to cup Jimmy’s face. “I thought you wanted me to leave you alone.”

“I don’t,” Jimmy says, and it’s wet. Wet and cracked all the way down. 

“I won’t then,” Thomas says, and presses his face to Jimmy’s cheek, “I won’t.”

“Don’t kiss me,” Jimmy says, mouth breaking with the shape of the words. 

“Okay, love,” Thomas says, and that’s – worse. Jimmy pushes his hand down the length of Thomas’ chest. 

“You can fuck me though, if you want.” Thomas runs his nose along the line of Jimmy’s cheekbone and it’s like a shiver in Jimmy’s bones, or an explosion, going off under his skin. “Yeah,” he says, breath hard, “Will you fuck me?”

Thomas makes a noise. His hands are in Jimmy’s hair, in his clothes. “You want it?”

“I need it,” Jimmy tells him. 

“Turn around.”

He does, working his hands under his jacket to get it off, wanting to feel the breadth and warmth of Thomas against him, his hands crowding against Jimmy’s waist, nudging him up against the tree again. He’s been fucked against trees before, and walls, and over tables. He loves it. 

“That’s it, my love,” Thomas tells him and runs his hands all the way up Jimmy’s back and against his neck, his throat, and Jimmy feels it like an affliction.

“I’m not -,” he swallows, “I’m not crying for you. I don’t need it.”

Thomas pauses with his hands in Jimmy’s hair. “Jimmy?” 

He takes a harsh breath in. “I’m not – I’m not begging for it, right now. I haven’t been thinking about your cock in me, fucking me open.”

Thomas’ voice is ragged. “Oh?”

“Not at all.” He shuts his eyes. “I don’t want you to kiss me.”

“Okay,” Thomas says, voice like the breath going out of something, or a lamp being blown out. 

“I don’t want your mouth on mine.” The tree bark is rough under his fingers. Walls are, too, and table edges leave strange-shaped bruises on hip bones. 

“Oh,” Thomas says, “That’s – that’s good.” His fingers pull Jimmy’s half-unbuttoned shirt down a little, exposing the tops of his shoulders. “’Cause I’m not doing that.” There’s a shape – like a sear. On his shoulder. “I’m not touching my mouth to your skin.” A tongue, soft and warm, and it’s a stupid thought but – it’s sunlight falling on his shoulder. They’re in the dark, but there – that’s a touch of sunlight. “I’m not running my mouth,” open-mouthed, shocking, “up the back of your neck.” Shiver-boned, tree bark on his fingertips. “I’m not, just here, pressing my mouth behind your ear. It’s not the place I look at on you, sometimes, at dinner in the servant’s hall, and imagine if it’s as soft and sweet as it looks and if you’d make those noises you make if I put my mouth on it.” He sighs softly, almost like a laugh. “Incidentally, it’s not. It’s not everything I imagined it to be, and better.”

“Good,” Jimmy says. Everything hurts. From the arches of his feet all the way up. His eyelids ache with it. With longing. With wanting. He’s full up with it. “I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to look at me when we’re in the hall, or serving dinner, or in the courtyard smoking, and know that I’m looking back at you, thinking about the last time you touched me, wondering when the next time will be. Hoping it’ll be so soon ‘cause I can’t go on waitin’ anymore.”

“Oh,” Thomas says, voice shaking, breath hard, “I’m not going to kiss you. I’m not going to turn you around and kiss you, Jimmy.”

“Thank you,” Jimmy exhales, and it may be soft enough that Thomas doesn’t hear him, but he turns in Thomas’ arms and says, “Please don’t,” and then Thomas is kissing him and he’s being kissed and kissing back, Thomas’ hands on his face, Jimmy’s arms around his shoulders, holding him close for all the times he pushed him away, mouths nudging each other into soft shapes and softer breaths. 

Eventually, Thomas does lay him out, right there on the forest floor. Twigs in his hair. Dirt under his fingernails. They don’t stop kissing, not once all the way through. 

Thomas finds him the next day in the boot blacking room. “What, no cupboards about?”

Thomas snorts. “I could locate one if you like. You look nice with a little dust in your hair.”

“Is this becoming a thing for you, then? Twigs, dust, next thing I know you’ll be asking me to wear one of your terrible hats during.” He looks up from the boot he’s polishing. “I draw the line there, Thomas.”

Thomas is smiling. It makes crinkles come out around his eyes. Jimmy’d like those to stick around, if he can get them to. It’s December, after all. Cheer and goodwill and merriment, and all that. 

“I might go and visit my mum,” he says, which isn’t what he meant to say, at all. So much for cheerfulness, though he’s never been anything but exemplary at getting in the way of himself. He looks down at the boots. They’re scuffed, probably won’t ever go right again. “If you’d like to come.”

When he looks back up, Thomas is nudging a chair against the door to keep it shut. 

“Sorry,” he says, coming over. “Just thought – I didn’t want to answer without being able to -,” he reaches out and puts his hand on Jimmy’s face, instead of finishing that sentence. “’Course I’ll come.”

“Alright.” Thomas nods. "And, I don’t want – to go out to the pubs anymore, not like that, at least. And I want you to kiss me, once I’m finished what I’m saying here, and my god, is it always like this? Once you start you can’t stop?” 

Thomas laughs shakily. “Sometimes, I think.”

“This is awful,” Jimmy complains. It’s like something opening up inside of him. He doesn’t know what to do with it.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas says politely. “You’re very sweet.”

Thomas’ thumb is stroking his cheek. “I like that. I like the way you touch me.” It’s a fucking well inside of him. He breathes out through his nose. “My god, Thomas. Shut my mouth for me,” he says, and Thomas kisses him, open-mouthed and laughing, and Jimmy thinks maybe he does know what to do with it after all. 

+++

_and my happiness would kill them  
so I shove joy like a knife  
into my own heart over and over_

_and I force myself toward pleasure,  
and I love this November life_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you dearly for reading. Comments and feedback welcome and loved! <3


End file.
